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Trying to do that in a crowd reminds me of a 3 Stooges movie. "Watch it! You'll put someones eye out with that thing!"
Besides, everyone knows that photography is all about having all those toys. Forget about talent. More hardware will always make better pictures!

DennisS decided to machine his own lens ring cause he wants to use it for his next trip. I tested the panasonic lens ring with Karel for Samyang 7.5 and we found out that there has to be different insert. DennisS was informed about this.

Nice that it will be delivered next week. Thx Nick.

Be aware that there seem to be a lot of people waiting for this lens ring. Also on panoguide. I ordered at Foto-tip, the first one to deliver before Andrew had them in stock.

I still am waiting, cause it is sold out in Poland.. Takes another week or two.

Andrew told us he is sold out too cause they sell like "hot cakes". So the lens ring should sell like a hot cake too

I continue to spend a lot of time solving several issues associated with getting the Samyang lens to work with the NEX camera.

One major problem is a type of lens flare that I have never seen before.

Usually I can use intelligent fill to remove lens flare. This type of flare had got me stumped. I cannot use a different f stop since image quality will suffer.

I tried tilting the camera up 45 degrees to take another shot at the same view. The resulting image stitches in quite nicely and, with proper masking, deals with the flare.

Tilting up 45 degrees when using the R1 is a real pain and rather time consuming. Remember most of my stuff is outdoors in the bright sun shine. The sun sits still for nobody and will not wait for you to finish shooting your panorama. You gotta get your pano shot quickly so the shadows line up easier.

This very small pano head allows you to very quickly take the shot into the sun, tilt up 45 degrees, take a "patch" shot, and then continue on.

Tilted up 45 degrees:

There is also a setting that allows tilting up 90 degrees.

You can still see bits from the R1.

I designed this so I can keep my right hand on the camera while photographing the entire sequence. My left hand takes care of steading the monopod as well as releasing the pin for upward rotation.

When deciding what and how much equipment to take along, one must look at the entire process, from picking the spot to publishing on the web. Is it better to use the D300/Sigma 8mm or the NEX/Samyang 7.5? At this point I am satisfied with the images out of the NEX. Is it worth taking this small pano head over the R1? For the NEX a resounding YES. This rig is still very much smaller and lighter than the D300 rig. The finished panoramas are very similar in appearance. I am almost ready to commit to taking this camera on my trip next week. I have not published any panoramas yet because I do not want to throw something together just for the sake of publishing.

I saw that kind of flare all the time from my LX3+wide angle adapter. One way to deal is to take one dead on the sun and then one to the left and one to the right about 20 degrees. With mask and blending they go away. No tilting necessary -- with my stuff -- that I sold.

You don't have to stick to a rigorous 4 around on 90 degrees. Shoot freestyle. More pictures to combat flare. Shoot 5 or 7 or 8 around as you need to. PTGui fixes everything.

I had to face .027" off of the back side of the lens mounting flange and the locating lip. Putting the shims back in brought the distance down to .012". This allows infinity focus and corrects issues with stitching. The optics are too far away from the sensor using a stock lens and adapter. Smooth has confirmed that material needs to be removed.

I finally went out and purchased a rotary table. No more champhers. I can do real circular milling. Sure wish I had access to a CNC mill.

Here is what my pano head looks like so far:

Total weight as pictured is 146 grams.

That is an electronic level hanging off of the left hand side. It helps me level out the camera for taking the hand held Nadir shot. I have not made up my mind yet if the level saves or costs time.

Here is how I hold the camera for the Nadir patch shot. My ring finger fires the camera.

This is one small package!

I am having success controlling lens flare by taking 5 around without the need for a zenith shot. Looks like the mini NN3 will not be put into service.

As soon as I finish figuring out the Nodal point and focus/f stop settings, sample panoramas will follow.